Inspired by Erika Dreifus and her guest blogs at Jessica Piazza’s Poetry Has Value, I decided to track my literary submissions—or offerings, if you prefer—on a monthly basis. Sure, I’d been tracking them in Excel, but I wasn’t really look … Continue reading →

Yiddish Language, Culture, and History

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The New Yorker Article about Children’s Holocaust Books Folks have been buzzing about Ruth Franklin’s New Yorker article, “Transported.” You can read it here. You can also access information about children’s Holocaust books published in the United States and Canada … Continue reading →

The Whole Megillah (TWM): What inspired this collection? Carol Davis (CD): I don’t ever think in terms of a collection before I put it together so I can’t say there was a specific inspiration for the collection as a whole, … Continue reading →

I recently returned from a week at the Yiddish Book Center as a participant in the TENT program for children’s writers and illustrators. This incredible program, sponsored by PJ Library, was a journey of soulful explorations, academic discussions, and emotion-filled … Continue reading →

The Whole Megillah caught up with busy author and teacher Lisa Romeo last month at a coffee shop in northern New Jersey. I asked her for her top tips in writing memoir. Here are the results of our conversation, fresh … Continue reading →

The Whole Megillah (TWM): What has led you to write memoir? What are the greatest challenges and the greatest satisfactions? Mimi Schwartz (MS): I had been writing fiction and poetry until we spent a year in Israel in 1972-73. There I … Continue reading →

Yes, I know this is not a craft book or a work of literature, and there’s no Jewish content here. But I present these two books here in the interest of spring cleaning and renewal. I’d heard about Marie Kondo … Continue reading →

The Whole Megillah (TWM): What prompted you to write this book? Janet Wees (JW): When I visited the memorial site of The Hidden Village in the mid-2000s, it affected me more than other sites I’d seen; it gave me a … Continue reading →

I attended a session at the Princeton Public Library three weeks ago about writing the memories of others. The speaker, professor and memoirist Ellen G. Friedman, shared her family’s story: seven of her family members escaped east into the Soviet … Continue reading →